United - Back to Basics?

To keep a clean sheet, on our travels in Valencia, was something that we`ve not experienced in recent weeks.

Now whether that can be attributed to the presence of Rio Ferdinand or not is something we could debate for quite a while.

But Rio, after returning to the side, had plenty to say to the tabloid press on the subject, commenting,

"This result is definitely a confidence boost."

"It has been well documented we have let points slip in recent games and you do get nervous when you`re on a run like that. But against Valencia I thought we dealt with it as a team."

"The platform for any successful team is to defend well and keep clean sheets."

"I never put it down to just a couple of players or a unit of four or five players. It is about the whole team working hard and doing their jobs. If the forwards are not working as the first line of defence, it makes it that much harder."

"So it is down to the players to communicate all the way through the team and try to apply what the manager wants us to do."

Basically, in summing it up, Rio could quite easily have said that defence starts from the front back, something that all great teams are perfectly aware of.